


A Red Sky at Night

by RideBoldlyRide



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Fire Lady Katara, For ZKFAW, Iroh is a Zutarian, Zutara, based off of TE-AL-LATTE's art, i don't make the rules
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:28:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27752341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RideBoldlyRide/pseuds/RideBoldlyRide
Summary: This is for the Fluff Friday prompt on ZFAW 2020:Monsoon season settles in wet and gray, much like Katara's mood. But even the rain must stop at some point.***Monsoon season sits like a leaden weight over the Fire Nation capital. The usual chitter and bustle of the markets and streets near the harbor is muted, the children herded inside (much to the chagrin of meticulous mothers), the markets forced into overhangs, their wares significantly reduced or waterlogged (much to the chagrin of the fathers now unable to escape their penned children and fractious wife). It is one of the few things that equalizes the Royal with the Commoner, the Noble with the Merchant....However, even the waterbender is feeling the past two weeks of solid rain.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 122





	A Red Sky at Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Te-al-latte](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Te-al-latte).
  * Inspired by [Zutara Week 2020 Day 4 "Celestial"](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/718219) by Te-al-latte. 



> This is based off of te-al-latte's beautiful art from this year's Zutara week. 
> 
> A special thanks to thetasteoflies for being my beta on clutch, and ifyouwereamelody for her worry Sokka comment. I'll edit these with the runners up at the end after I've published this. 
> 
> ❤️ Love you guys- you all are what keeps me motivated to grow.

Monsoon season sits like a leaden weight over the Fire Nation capital. The usual chitter and bustle of the markets and streets near the harbor is muted, the children herded inside (much to the chagrin of meticulous mothers), the markets forced into overhangs, their wares significantly reduced or waterlogged (much to the chagrin of the fathers now unable to escape their penned children and fractious wife). It is one of the few things that equalizes the Royal with the Commoner, the Noble with the Merchant. It is ironic, Katara can’t help but contemplate -- it is her element that humbles all who encounter it to their base aspect: humanity.

However, even the waterbender is feeling the past two weeks of solid rain. When Zuko had left for the burgeoning project in the Earth Kingdom at the summer solstice, she had yet to experience the long sock in of rain that pelted the capital every year. After all, at that point they had only been married six months. 

But duty had called, and now just as long as she had been married, she had been separated from him.

Dark fingers tap a rapid staccato on the ebony wood, and blue eyes follow the lines of smoke that swirl in the all-too-cramped room that Zuko’s advisors had wrangled her to. One of them is currently standing, pontificating on an absurdly long scroll, his wizened hand gesturing aggressively at the inked words, as if they had personally offended him. Abstractly, her mind is calculating the length of the scroll, and — hypothetically, of course — calculating if its length is enough to bind its bearer entirely. Is there even writing on half of it? 

The old man shuffles and his robe brushes the parchment bunched at his feet. Eyes narrow in the fire dappled light. 

No, she is certain, there is no writing. 

A swell of irritation grows within her, and she glances to Iroh, who has been her personal advisor in Zuko’s absence. He’s looking very specifically at the stitching on his sleeve. Or maybe the etching on his teacup that was still slightly steaming as it had been the past three hours… firebenders. 

Firebenders.

Fire. 

Warm.

Zuko.

_ Dammit _ .

She has grown accustomed to avoiding the thought of him during the day, when she was at her weakest, allowing herself the ache of loneliness, of forlorn longing, to sink in only under Yue’s light. But occasionally, and with more frequency, the thoughts of him were becoming intrusive and visceral. Attempting to pull her dignity around herself like a shroud, she shuffles in her uncomfortable chair, attempting to project a propriety and presence of mind that she does not feel, and focuses her attention towards the councilman still droning on. It must have been obvious on her expression though, since, from her other side, a snicker reaches her ear. 

Throwing a side eye with a threat and promise of violence towards her brother, the ambassador, she tries one last time to focus. 

In the scraping sound of the old man’s voice, she tries to find the youth that once was there, but her imagination falls flat. Was he ever a child?

A strange sort of silence hangs over the room, save for the frail old man still carrying on, and it’s heavy like the clouds outside, and Katara is on edge. Someone lets out a sickly cough. A shuffle of booted feet. Parchments crinkle and scrape as they are rearranged. Dry skin is scratched through brocaded fabrics.

Outside, the rain is a steady drum.

Zuko is supposed to be home today. Home. Here. 

What’s taking him so  _ spirits-damned long? _

When a guard shifts slightly in his stance, the creak is enough to send Katara to her feet. 

“Pardon me for the interruption, but I just became aware of the time.” She could feel Sokka’s querying brow, but she pointedly ignores him and it. It is time. Time for her to get out of this room before she drowned them all in their own tea. “Advisors, if you wish my attention, I’m afraid you’ll have to join me in the courtyard.”

The miserly old man who has been elaborating looks aghast, and stares down at the piles of unwrapped scroll at his feet. “But- but-...”

From the opposite end of the room, a young advisor, Cato, stands. “I believe the Fire Lady may be on to something. It has been a long monsoon, has it not?” 

She throws a grateful smile his way. There was a reason Zuko favored him.

The older men reluctantly agree, and as she leads the way out of the room, they trail her, all but one. Still in shock, the old man with the scroll is standing, mouth agape, unable to move from his own entrapment. 

* * *

Chairs are brought to the portico surrounding the courtyard for the older members of the council, but Katara steps out into the sheets of rain, crown and robe still adorning her. Absently, she twirls her fingers, the water gathering and swirling around them. 

The rain is like a beat in her head, a song that she alone knows the tune of, and she is compelled to dance along. 

It’s this way that the messenger finds her: the Fire Court in session around the courtyard, the Fire Lady drenched and weighed down by her heavy and wet brocades, a wall of intricately weaved streams of water behind her, and a serene expression on her face, her eyes closed. When she reopens them, she responds calmly to a minister, before allowing them to continue. 

It takes a moment for the messenger to break free of the spell, and is brought back by a ginger touch at his elbow. Iroh is smiling gently at him, a twinkle in his eye.

“She is quite magnificent, isn’t she?”

The young man nods, some of his awe escaping as his words do: uncontrollable. “I can see why the Fire Lord loves her.”

Iroh chuckles. “Yes, she is much like the element she wields; unable to be tamed, frightening when angered, and oh so gracious to those she chooses.”

For a moment, they both turn to her and watch again. The general clears his throat. 

“You have a message, young man?”

“Oh!” His face erupts in crimson, and he hurriedly pulls the black ribbon scroll from his bag. Attempting to give it to Iroh, he is met with an upraised palm. 

“I believe those are only for the Fire Lord or Lady.”

“But she’s-“

“She will understand. In fact, if it is who I think it is, you may even win over a smile from her.”

Iroh is right, of course. When Katara opens the scroll, she smiles brightly at the young man before turning and bolting out the door.

* * *

Surrounded by the sheeting rain, Zuko stands at the bow of the ship, unsheltered, unheeded. The storm continues to dump the uncomfortably lukewarm water around and on him, but he has long since dismissed the feeling of it running down his back, between his skin and armor. There wasn’t much left of his body that wasn’t drenched in the cascading rain.

But his vigil, as unseeing as it was, is coming to an end. 

It has been a long trip -- far too long for even the most generous of estimates. There had been setbacks, delays, regressions, and straight out hostility. What had been planned for had more than doubled, and his time away was beginning to feel more like a banishment once more. Writing home had helped; there wasn’t a day a tired hawk didn’t land at his window. But nothing compared to the dip in the bed where she slept, the scent of her hair on his pillow, the soft snore against his neck. He is tired, so very tired. And yet...

Even though it is still veiled by the gray, the coast lays just beyond his reach. The sea seethes slightly under the ship’s hull and Zuko steadies himself against the railing. A thrill runs his veins, and he grins at the roll of the ship. Tired he may be, but he knows what waits for him at the shoreline, and that is enough to push all of the achy weariness aside. 

There isn’t much that can dampen his spirits, no matter how much the rain has dampened, well, everything else, he decides.

That is, until the Captain joins him on deck, his oilskin shining in the dim grays.

* * *

The fineries of her Fire Lady gown hangs limply across her body. Even still, the rain continues to sheet. Her hair is slicked to her scalp, the rain sliding down her face in thin rivulets. In her hand, the letter from the black ribbon hawk sits limp, it’s script irredeemably waterlogged. But she knows what it contained, and is rapidly making her way by foot down the mountain to the harbor.

A year prior, a Fire Lady would not have been seen outside of a palanquin. 

Six months prior, a Fire Lady would not have been seen walking through the city without a troupe of guards, advisors and handmaids.

And while the people have grown accustomed to seeing the Fire Lady among their stalls, laughing at the old men’s stories, and comforting skinned knees and sodden cheeks of their children, it is another sight entirely that greets them. 

The Fire Lady, in all her glory, marching down the main roads towards the harbor, her eyes fixed on her destination, a glint of steel in her sea blue eyes. 

_ Storm delayed journey too long.  _

The words were written by the ship’s captain; a good and able seaman that Zuko had trusted for years. His judgement is infallible, his advice pragmatic.

_ Missed turn of tides. Must wait on next turn in the morning. _

His judgement is infallible, his advice pragmatic -- Katara considers wryly -- when it doesn’t involve a master waterbender.

_ My apologies, your Ladyship. The Fire Lord has been informed. _

The harbor lies open to her, even as the veil of rain permits her from spotting the ship just outside of the encompassing edges of the bay. Around her, the few deckhands and fishermen are pulling in the remnants of their wares or are preparing for the night’s fishing hours. However, at the sight of their Fire Lady, to a man, they pause, watching.

Behind her, she can make out the swift steps of her personal guards (they had been in shock at the sight of their ward at practically a run, bolt past them and out the front gate before they recognized that she had not planned to bring them along), followed by a steady plod of heavy feet (Iroh) and a confident stride, with a slight hitch in their step (Sokka). While Iroh and the guards hung back, there wasn’t even a pause in her brother’s step as he came beside her, equally soaked, but grinning. 

“So, now you’re here.” His voice was a taunt, and it took all of the training she had gone through not to punch him in the arm. Katara merely stashes away a mark in his column for later. “And he’s not. Just going to sit here and get soaked even more or…?”

“The tide’s out.”

“Wait. The tide’s out, and you came all the way down here for nothing?” A laugh is in his voice. “So Zuko’s not even coming in tonight.”

She bounces slightly on the balls of her feet; the water and the tides call to her, and with a soothing breath, she slides into her waterbending stance, before pausing to give him a significant look. He merely rolls his eyes, and moves to go sit at the wooden dock, his feet dangling over the edge. He doesn’t notice as a devilish smile starts to pull at her lips. 

She shifts again, her hands moving around her with the ease and grace of a practiced dancer. As she feels the pull of the water like strings of a woven tapestry, she tugs and twists, yanks and rearranges, investigating the snags in the fabric. Just beyond her eye, she can feel the slit of water cut through by a large ship-- Zuko’s. Knowing where he is, she begins to weave the water like a thread of wool around the cords of a loom. 

Waves start to slop up on to the dock around them, and she vaguely hears her brother's protestation at being moistened. She ignores him, her smile still playing at her lips. Rather than fall into her normal routine and katas, she allows the gross motions to pull the tide in, small eddies forming in the water. 

A sensation, like a spirit running its fingers over the back of her neck, tells her that her motions are beginning to work as the hull of the ship is splitting the water she pulls towards her like the tide. With a mind fully devoted to this singular task, she takes it on with intensity, and the waves begin to crash over the harbor. 

From the gray, a looming figure of black steel begins to emerge. With its arrival, the soft, discordant sounds of seafaring trips over the water and the dock, and through the steady drone of rain: a foreman yelling to his crew, the bleat of a shift change bell, a breaching wave on a metal hull, a soft susurration of the men at the bow. Katara maintains her position, as the ship's details start to swim into view. Out of the corner of her eye, she swears she sees a flash of red and gold, but it is gone the moment her eager eyes search for it. Finally as the ship throws down its lines, and the dock hands move to secure them, Katara releases the tide, and the water drops the ship into its slot in the harbor. Indistinctly, she hears the men aboard give shouts of surprise, but gratefully, no pain. 

"That was something else,  _ Katuh _ ." She watches her brother shake his head in surprise. "Looks like you might need to let off some…  _ steam _ ."

Without even a glance, she flicks a finger, and a singular dash of water pummels Sokka between the eyes. Sputtering, he turns to her. “Really? I’m already drenched, ya know!”

“So no one will believe you when you tell them the Fire Lady smacked you with water.”

He rounds, looking at the guards and Iroh. While the guards at least have the dignity enough to stand straight and make no eye contact, Iroh is busy studying the grain of the deck below his feet.

Sokka heaves a sigh.

A metallic clank interrupts the interchange, and eagerly, Katara steps forward, even as the gangplank descends. 

It’s barely parallel, and  _ he  _ is bounding down its length. His foot reaches the dock at the same time that the gangplank does. Katara is there to meet him, and it’s hands in hair, fisted in tunics, pressed into backs. For a long moment, there’s only a shared breath between them, passed back and forth like a promise, an apology, a whisper of longing.

“Zuko…” His name on her lips, tumbling out like a sigh. She says it as if a prayer to the spirits, begging them that he’s real, he’s solid, before her, and not some mirage about to slide away under her touch. It’s all it takes for him, and he is crashing into her, the world forgotten around them. 

She melts like ice in the summer sun, even as his lips pluck sighs and whimpers from her. Katara’s hands clutch at the front of his tunic, pulling him closer, and he bends over her, almost stumbling. A chuckle breaks them apart for a moment, but his lips never stray too far from hers, and he restarts his attention to her with a new vigor, his teeth pulling at her bottom lip. The shiver that runs her spine is not from the rain, he knows, even as he feels the steam rising from his own body. It pulls another smile from his lips and he uses the break in the momentum to shift, his lips starting to trail to her jawline, the ghost of a breath on her skin, interlaced with small kisses to specific spots, like pressure points. Goosebumps raise where his warm breath dances, and he feels the almost-purr of satisfaction at the result. Stopping at the pulse point of her neck, he lavishes it with attention, desperately hungry for the small noise she makes when he does, and he can feel and hear it building in her throat. 

The hand in her hair slides down her neck, his thumb across the front of her throat, and he feels her swallow hard. Zuko curls his hand under her jaw turning her head to get a better angle, and her hands go to his hair, that certain sound trying to escape her lips, and he feels the thrill of victory--

Only to hear a distinct throat clear.

Suddenly both Katara and Zuko still, and he sees her redden, as it runs from her chest up her throat, and he straightens, seeing the blush spread to her cheeks, even as she squeezes her eyes closed. Dropping her head, she rests her forehead on his shoulder, a different moan escaping her.

His eyes are wide, and the steam that is coming off of him growing more intense. A blush colors his own cheeks, even as he tries not to meet Sokka’s smirk or Iroh’s knowing gaze. 

“Well,” Iroh begins, and despite Zuko’s attempts, he cannot stop himself from meeting his uncle’s gaze. “At least that will put to bed any rumors about heirs.”

Sokka guffaws loudly, and this time it’s Zuko who moans and drops his head. 

“Hi Katara.” His words are a whisper, just dancing over and around her. “Sorry for that.”

“I’m not.” She doesn’t lift her head, so her words are muffled, but she does turn slightly, a devious look playing on her features. “I would rather not have stopped. I’m not embarrassed about kissing you in public, Zuko.”

She raises her head, but their bodies remain tight against each other. The same devious expression is still on her face. “I’m embarrassed that I don’t care, and would have kissed you, and more, in the middle of Caldera at this point.”

A laugh escapes him, relieved and hearty, and he backs away, taking her hands in his. Kissing her knuckles, he brings them to his bent arm, and arm in arm, they begin the trek towards the palace, heedless entirely of the rain that is still falling.

“Do you have any meetings this afternoon?”

“Already rescheduled.”

His smile grows, but he doesn’t look down at her. “I’m sure the council was less than pleased.”

“Well.” Her word escapes just shy of a huff, and this time he does turn slightly and raises a brow, even as she pointedly ignores his look. There’s color riding high on her cheeks. “One of them decided to ask me a week or two ago about the ‘primitive’ manner that the Southern Water Tribe is reported to use to ensure heirs…”

She pauses, looking up at him quizzically. “Ah, so you haven’t heard the salacious news, I presume?”

“No?” 

“Oh! Well, according to these councilors,” her voice takes on a scholarly tone, “we women are expected to ‘cry out uncontrolled’ to ‘ensure the spirits hear our plea for a child’ over the Arctic winds.”

The guffaw that escapes his lips makes the guards trailing them jump. 

“So how many councilors were drowned in their own tea for that?”

“Why would I correct them, Zuko?”

“Because they’re wrong?”

“Of course they are, but why edit their knowledge when I can use their ignorance to my advantage?”

“And that advantage is?”

“Clearing them from the palace when my husband returned.”

It starts with a shake of the head and a smile on his face, but before long he has to stop to clutch at his stomach as the laughter pours from him. Beside him, still with her hand on his bent elbow, Katara is smiling like a Pygmy panther. 

As he rights himself, he pulls her in close, a smile wide on his lips. “ _ Agni _ , how I have missed you.”

“Show me.”

“I plan to.” Honey eyes glow like molten. “In fact, I plan to ensure that the spirits ‘hear our plea’ over the Arctic winds from Caldera.”

“Promise?”

He seals it with a searing kiss.

And though the clouds hang low over them, the fading sunlight casts the world in a vibrant red glow.

* * *

When she stirs, it’s to the sounds of the dawn chorus and the ever-so-distant crash of waves. She can feel more than see the shafts of sunlight that warm her body in soft heat. Mind muddled, she reaches through the ruffled sheets blindly, her hair a curtain across her face.

The night returns to her slowly, and Katara feels a fuzzy warmth radiate out from her chest. 

Pale fingers had weaved promises into her hair, soft lips had pressed longing into her skin. She had met him stroke for stroke, whispering loyalty into the dip of his throat, and embedded devotion across his back.

But now, her hand meets the empty sheets with a slight frown. Blearily, Katara slits open an eye and peaks through the curtain of her hair. The sight that meets her at the break of day catches her breath in her throat. 

Zuko.

He's there, only a soft pair of sleeping pants tied about his waist. She can see the devotion she has tattooed across his back and something swells in her chest. With an impatient hand she pushes the tumultuous curls back from her face that are insistently keeping her from him, and props herself with pillows. As the sheets fall away, she remembers clearly how they had clung to each other, neither willing to move from the bed that night.

There had been an ache growing in her chest since he had left, but as she tries to search for it, to poke and prod at the wound, like a child, she finds it still tender, but filled -- a scab, reminiscent of the wound but healing, healed, the promise of restoration evident.

Her eyes drift once more to her husband, resplendent in the sunrise. His raven hair is tossed to one side, and she can see the line of his jaw, the plane of his cheek, and she wonders, not for the first time, if spirits did in fact live among us. 

Golden eyes scan the city below him, hands on his hips. 

The Water Tribe Fire Lady gifts herself as many moments as possible to take in all of the man she loved, content to ignore the rest of the world. Her mind suddenly engages, and she recognizes the sound -- or rather, the lack of sound. While leaves still drip heavy drops into undergrowth, and eaves still run lines of moisture down an unsuspecting chambermaid's back, the rain has  _ stopped _ . 

Katara is unaware that she made a sound until Zuko turns to her, a playful lift to his brow.

"There's -- there's no rain!" Her words are in awe. "It was literally overnight!"

A smile pulls across his face, and he returns to her side in the bed, pulling her to him. 

"That's always how the monsoon season ends.” Wrapping her closer to him, she can feel the sun warmed skin across his chest, and she leans in. A gentle brush of his lips at her hairline draws a shiver down her spine. “And when it does end -- it always does, even when it feels like it’s been your existence your whole life -- the rest of the world wakes up.”

A hand sweeps out and away from them towards the open windows. Outside, the sounds of life are raucous as nature comes alive. She snuggles closer to him, her brow knitting together.

“It did feel like forever.” The words are a whisper, and she curses herself the moment they escape. She feels selfish, desperate for his undivided attention, and she condemns the weakness in her soul-- only for a gentle touch at her cheek to smooth away the disgust.

“Never again, Katara. I promise.”

Tears brim in her eyes, and she offers him a watery smile, even as she turns into his calloused hand. She nods.

“Never again.” 


End file.
